“How do you judge distances?” asked Harry disagreeably. “I suppose you all must know since nobody had any questions.” They all looked chastened so Harry explained. At 1300 yards good eyesight can distinguish infantry from cavalry. A single individual detached may be seen at 1000 yards but his head does not appear as a round ball until 700 yards, at which distance white cross-belts and white trousers may be seen. At goo yards the face may be seen as a light coloured spot and limbs, uniform and firelocks can be made out. At 250 and 200 yards details of body and uniform are tolerably clear. “Or alternatively, Vokins, you multiply the number of seconds which elapse between the time of seeing the flash of the enemy’s musket and hearing the report by 1100 and the product will be the distance in feet. Have you got that?”
“And the product will be the distance in feet,” mumbled Vokins impressively, but with an air of complete incomprehension. He was spared any further inquisition by the sudden appearance of the Padre.
The Padre was looking more haggard and wild-eyed than ever. He had thought that he would never be able to reach the banqueting hall because he had had to cross the stretch of open lawn swept by musket fire and grape which lay between the Church and the hall and which he had thought of as the Slough of Despond. How naked one feels and how small! Crossing such a piece of land, like navigating the rocks, reefs and shoals of life, one feels that of oneself one is nothing. One’s only protection is in the Lord. The living, the living, shall praise thee! The Lord had been like a strong shield to him and had covered his head in the day of battle.
The Padre explained all this and more to the little garrison. They were glad of prayers. They felt that the more prayers they heard the better. But they became a little impatient as the Padre rambled on about Sin. What he said was true, no doubt, but they had the enemy to think of … It was rather like having someone keep asking you the time when your house is on fire. They found it hard to give him their whole attention.
But something else was rankling in the Padre’s mind. This was the thought that, if they were being punished now, as Sodom and Gomorrah had been punished, it might be because there was not only Sin but Heresy in their midst. And so he led Fleury into the banqueting hall, asked him to kneel while he said a prayer over the pile of bodies, and then asked him why he had objected to hearing God described as the designer of the world.
“Do you not think that God designed the world and everything that is in it?”
“Well,” said Fleury, “it’s not exactly that I don’t believe it …” With the Padre’s blue, unblinking eyes fixed on him he found it hard to collect his thoughts. The Padre waited in silence for Fleury to continue. They had closed the doors and windows against the hot wind but the heat was no less intense. A cloud of flies surrounded each of them, battling constantly to land on their faces. They could hear the sound of boots on the flagstones outside and the occasional crack of a musket, but within even the flies were silent.
“If you believe, as you must, that God designed the world and everything in it, then why should you not proclaim it? Why should you not praise Him for these wonders He has created? I’m sure you read Paley at school.”
“But I think,” blurted Fleury suddenly, “that God has nothing to do with that sort of thing … God is a movement of the heart, of the spirit, or conscience … of every generous impulse, virtue and moral thought.”
“Can you deny the indications of contrivance and design to be found in the works of nature … contrivance and design which far surpasses anything we human beings are capable of? How d’you explain such indications? How d’you explain the subtle mechanism of the eye, infinitely more complex than the mere telescope that miserable humanity has been able to invent? How d’you explain the eel’s eye, which might be damaged by burrowing into mud and stones and is therefore protected by a transparent horny covering? How is it that the iris of a fish’s eye does not contract? Ah, poor, misguided youth, it is because the fish’s eye has been designed by Him who is above all, to suit the dim light in which the fish makes his watery dwelling!”
A terrifying crash shook the building as a round shot struck the outside wall and brought down a shower of bricks, followed by a fine sprinkling of dust which sparkled in the thin beams of sunlight. But the Padre paid no attention to it.
“How d’you explain the Indian Hog?” he cried. “How d’you account for its two bent teeth, more than a yard long, growing upwards from its upper jaw?”
“To defend itself?”
“No, young man, it has two tusks for that purpose issuing from the lower jaw like those of a common boar -. . No, the answer is that the animal sleeps standing up and, in order to support its head, it hooks its upper tusks on the branches of trees … for the Designer of the World has given thought even to the hog’s slumbers!”
Hardly had the Padre’s voice ceased to echo when Fleury heard a shout from outside and the sound of rifle fire from the rampart.
“Look here, I’m afraid I shall have to go!” shouted Fleury excitedly, dashing for the door. But the Padre sprang after him, crying: “Think of the stomach of the camel! Adapted to carry large quantities of water which it needs for the desert regions through which it frays its diurnal passage.”
Blinded by the glare, Fleury groped for his sponge and took up his position at the cannon. The Padre, too, came out and stood there, as dazzled as a fish in bright light, muttering, as if to himself: “Think of the milk of the viviparous female!” Fleury pulled him down hurriedly into the protection of the philosophers; it occurred to him that the Padre had perhaps become delirious from heat and exhaustion.
But whether he was delirious or not, Harry needed practical as well as spiritual assistance from the Padre; so he dragged him to his feet again and set him to work with Vokins serving ammunition; Barlow and the second native pensioner, Mohammed, he ordered to take up positions on the verandah with rifles, while Fleury and Ram waited to take up sponge and ramrod once more. Now the rifle fire from the rampart to right and left of their position redoubled; the sepoys could be seen swarming over the near bank of the river as they began their assault. Harry and Fleury had laid their sabres beside them on the parapet; they had decided that should their defences be overrun they would sell their lives as dearly as possible, rather than trying to bolt for it … Fleury had succeeded (but only with difficulty) in overcoming certain qualms as to whether selling one’s life as dearly as possible, or even putting it up for sale at all, was, in fact, the wisest course.
Although the enemy were now plainly in sight and advancing steadily over the open ground Harry held his fire. Canister shot consists of lead balls loosely packed into cylindrical tin canisters, whose tops are soldered on, and bottoms nailed to a wooden shoe to prevent “windage” (that is, the escape of the propellant gases around the shot); although very destructive from a hundred to two hundred yards, at a distance of more than three hundred the shot scatter so much as to be almost useless. Fleury did not know this and kept glancing at Harry, wondering what he was waiting for. He felt tired, lightheaded, thirsty, and wretched; now that he could see the glinting sabres of the sepoy cavalry he did not feel nearly as brave as he had expected. He was further unnerved by the Padre who in spite of their predicament, or even because of it, had not ceased to mutter urgent evidence of the Designer’s telltale hand … The instinct which causes butterflies to lay their eggs on cabbages which, not the butterfly itself, but the caterpillar from its egg, requires for nourishment. (But, wondered Fleury, distraught, why had the Designer not simply designed butterflies to eat cabbages too?)
The Padre’s eyes searched Fleury’s troubled countenance for signs that his resistance was beginning to weaken. For the Padre could not help imagining a situation where the combined Sin of the garrison hung in the balance against such virtue as they could muster made heavier by the Grace and Mercy of God. In this situation Fleury’s refusal to acknowledge His patent could only displease the Inventor and would doubtless weigh very heavy indeed on the side of Sin. If the Padre could shift that weight, perhaps, who could say? the scales might tip against the sepoys.